Keynotes
“Design Thinking — a Language for Educators”
Crafted UDL For school professionals to work collaboratively on the big, messy problems we all face when dealing with school improvement. Design Thinking is an excellent process to have a common method and language to tackle any large problem you face within your organization. This keynote is thoughtful towards the experiences of classroom teachers and implementable my them immediately.
“Educators are Designers”
Universal Design came directly out of the Americans with Disabilities act of 1990 and changed our designed world forever. The ideas within universal design and other design practices are easy to use when improving student experiences in your school. This keynote applies Universal Design, Hostile Design, Affordances & Signifiers and more.
“Students are the Greatest Consumer of Student Data”
Bring aggregated student data back to the students themselves in an anonymous, meaningful and supportive way. Check out a class program design that aims to use lessons, projects and assessments that are designed to heighten students group and self-awareness to their progress, successes and their areas for further development.
Workshops
ChatGPT & Generative A.I. Has Arrived in education
Interactive Learning and Experience – Your life is already being impacted by the data trained and generative technology we call AI. The videos you are recommended on Facebook and the face scanning technology that unlocks your phone are examples of AI that you live with right now. But what you may not know is that AI is working in the background of many apps, plugins and tools you and your students are already using. Now, with ChatGPT and other similar tools, AI is coming out of the shadows, and we can all directly interact with many of these powerful tools. Therefore, it is time for schools to get a strategy in place to know when and how to choose to use specific AI tools and when we want to leave them to the side. Covering three main topics, I offer sessions for teachers to approach AI student facing tools in elementary contexts, student facing tools in secondary and finally AI tools in educator professional use. All of this is done with a design thinking lens and with careful consideration of UDL experiences in mind. Contact me to learn more about how I can help your school take the first steps.
UDL & Design Thinking Workshops
Assessment Design – Single or multi day workshop intended to carry through the work from the keynote “Educators are Designers” where teachers and leaders will evaluate assessments and design new assessments that build upon understandings of Universal Design, Hostile Design, Affordances & Signifiers and more.
Mastery Learning with Reflective use of Data – This workshop helps develop skills based learning classroom programs, assessments and an innovative use of the collected data with students. Individual teachers and teams of teachers use their time together to reshape their classroom programs and develop new uses of data. Teachers will also learn and practice how to have group data conversations with entire classes and as well as with individual students and families.
Large Problem Facilitation
Your school site is dealing with a large and difficult problem/task such as changing over to standards based grading, creating a mission statement or redesigning your daily schedule. With motivation, time and skill, your team is ready to make that big change. Yet, for a school leader to both facilitate the process and to be a stakeholder can be less productive. I will come in as a seasoned educator and as a skilled outside facilitator to provide space for your school leaders to be the valued stakeholder.